Monday, August 12, 2013

Weekend Finds: A Bit on the Light Side

Good morning!

Well, for once this year, it's been a pretty low key weekend! My dad and I hit estate sales, but had more luck cracking each other up about this that and the other than we did actually picking up items to take home. Pappy actually put some things BACK, shaking his head in the way of a picker who recognizes a bargain, but has no room for anything but the TRULY STELLAR to put in one's collection. I finised the Conversations with Orson book, and am looking forward to starting Ava Gardner: The Secret Conversations. Partially because Variety recently headlined an article with the piquant byline, "‘Ava Gardner’ More Explicit Than Perhaps Any Other Superstar Memoir", and by Godfrey, I want to find out why! I'm also 80% through Joe Hill's new book, NOS482, which is taking me on Mr. Toad's Wild Ride itself emotion/suspense wise. Dude is amazing.

In the meantime, I did manage to take a couple pictures of the meagre Goodwill scores from this weekend. I apologize in advance for the photo quality being VERY poor, even for me! It's thundersome outside this morning and a bulb's out in the kitchen, meaning I had to rely on the flash to shine a light through this Brontë like gloom! #reallifeblogadventures

The haul totals:

Two (2) vintage cameras.

One (1) antique photograph.

One (1) mystical unidentified metal charm.

Three (3) polyester dresses.

I know! You're going, "Lisa! Say something only you would know! Where's the twenty-strong intact collection of tiki mugs from the sixties'? Where's the bearskin rug you couldn't leave behind? Where's the fifties' ballroom dress with the wearer's name sewn into the hem? This is so unlike you!" Folks, the creek run dry this weekend! Still, I'm very pleased with little trinkets I did take home. Let's take a closer look.

These two cameras were in an estate sale just around the corner in Madison that Eartha and I went to last weekend. The pictures boasted an array, and I'm talking every color, every fashion under the sun, of men and women's square dancing ensembles from the midcentury. DANG. By the time we got there at 9:30, an hour into the sale, every scrip and scrap of dance floor finery had been snagged already. Curses! We were impressed by the number of hand hewn benches, coffeetables, and side tables in the house (former owner was talented!) and I did manage to pick up some string ties that had somehow been overlooked (not pictured) and these two cameras. Check out the Polaroid in particular! Look familiar, Instagram users? This late seventies'/early eighties' model of the One Touch Land Camera features a VERY similar design to the logo used in the app's commercial presence. Neat, huh? For a dollar, the Hawkeye Instamatic II also had to come with me.

Next, one of the things I was most impressed with in my estate sale runs. I went to a Michael Taylor estate sale near St. Henry's out in West Meade, where everything was pretty much "stuff left behind by recent occupants". New purses and rugs and Christmas decor and that kind of thing. When I stepped back in the front room where the cashier was, OH MY GOODNESS. I usually leave this room til last as its the most crowded and peppered with things-people-have-already-bought. Heaven help the poor soul who actually picks up something in one of these haphazard rock piles of pyrex and dishtowels while the other person is there... "THAT'S MY STUFF. EVERYTHING OVER THERE IS MINE." I've been snapped at before in this fashion, and have avoided it ever since. However! In this case, the front room was completely filled with old photographs and medals. Piles of cabinet cards and scrapbooks (one from a woman's 1930's trip to an out of state revival somewhere in the North, complete with telegrams and postcards from home while they stayed at a hotel there...I was almost tempted). This drew my eye because of how amazingly clear and unscratched the image was:

And how pretty the subject is!

I need to brush up on my photo types, as I used to know the difference between an ambrotype and a tintype and a daguerrotype, but no more. Know that this image was recorded on a baseball card sized piece of tin, and is as clear as something taken with a good camera NOW. The picture I took with my Kodak is way blurrier than the 150 year old image itself! I'm guessing this is sometime in the 1860's-1870's, based on the clothes, and delighted that you can see the detail of her dress all the way down to the ribbon at her neck and the earrings she wore. SO COOL. And $5. I've never seen this old a picture for that little money, so I snatched at the opportunity. Only question now...how to display it? I'm terrified of scratching the image if I put it in a frame!

I really hope this doesn't summon some kind of demonic presense on me, but for a dollar, look into the eyes of this primitive/Deco-y medallion. I can't wait to string it on a chain and see what kind of curse I end up with (it's like a Cabbage Patch doll, you never know what you're gonna get). Seriously though, isn't it neat? I wish I knew anything else about it.

These look so sad sack all folded up and unloved in this photo, but I guarantee you heads will turn when I actually wear these loud vêtements out on the town! It seems harder and harder to find pre-1980 clothes at the Goodwill anymore, but that has never stopped me from trying, and these three are the fruits of my labor. The two at front are flirty mini dresses, and the one at back is one of those long sleeved, floor length, sweeping skirted hostess gowns. Good bye, jammie pants, and hello hostess gown! I love it.

So! That's it and that's all! One more aerial view from my darkened kitchen table:

Did you find anything neat this weekend? Which of these finds do you like the best? Know anything about my mystery medallion or the photo I posted? Did you get "warshed away" in the flood like conditions here in town over the last week? Let's talk!

I have to go get ready for my day off (Jen Q's meeting me for Indian lunch and then taking me to get my hair did! Win and WIN?), but I'll see you cats back here tomorrow. Til then!!

10 comments:

Thanks! I have something like fifty vintage cameras, pick them up whenever I see them, and this is THE FIRST Polaroid like this I've seen. In all these years! I wonder if they weren't very popular, or if people just snatch them up first at the estate sales?

hmmm, im going to pretend i didn't read that line about the room full of photos and the scrapbook. oh geeze! we're on a spending freeze until we go to tcalifornia so i'm not even LOOKING at the listings!

Haha, it was almost intimidating. Big (8'' x 10'') cards of people selling rugs, standing next to wagon carts, etc. I was really tempted to buy more, but I'm trying to be good, too. Just think of all the treasures you'll find in CA!!